RIVERSIDE: City will open gates, install stop signs

Riverside will install nearly a dozen stop signs and speed humps
to slow down cars in a Ward 4 neighborhood while the city studies a
permanent solution to a longstanding traffic issue.

Two sets of gates that block Crystal View Terrace and Green
Orchard Place in the Alessandro Heights area likely will be kept
open for much of the next year as the city reviews how that affects
traffic, the City Council decided Tuesday.

Most residents have said they want the gates open, though
Councilman Paul Davis cautioned that the gates may have to be
closed for a time to collect data for the study.

The study, which should cost about $450,000 and will come from a
fund fed by developer fees, is necessary because of how the gates
were put in place. Planning maps show Overlook Parkway as a main
route through the area. Because it was never completed, officials
required gates on Crystal View and Green Orchard to discourage
non-local drivers when they approved subdivision maps in 2001 and
2006.

But the gates -- sometimes locked and other times forced open --
have been a source of frustration for residents, who sometimes have
had to take the long way around their own neighborhoods.

For some, it's convenient to have the gates open, but it's also
an environmental issue, Dan Vaughan told the council.

"My kids go to school on the other side," he said. "Going
through those gates saves me about 3,000 miles a year."

Others said they don't want police and fire vehicles to be
slowed by having to open the gates. But several residents have
argued the gates shouldn't be opened because traffic is already bad
enough.

Alan Meyer, who lives on Via Vista Drive, told the council the
city should honor its commitment to keep the gates in place.

What the city committed to could open another can of worms.
Officials said the gates were required until Overlook Parkway is
completed, but now some worry that project would generate fierce
opposition and add traffic to the city's greenbelt, which is
prohibited by two voter-approved ballot measures.

The study will consider the parkway issue along with the gates,
but Davis said Wednesday that along with a railroad grade
separation and freeway ramp improvements for Madison Street -- the
most likely access point to Highway 91 -- finishing the parkway
could become a $100 million project.

Next, the city will hire a firm for the traffic study and begin
putting a plan in place to ease traffic now. Davis will hold a
community meeting Jan. 6 to get input on the plan, which includes
stop signs, speed humps and road restriping to include center lines
and bike lanes.

The three-phase plan would cost about $41,000, but the city only
would go forward with the first phase for now. It would add seven
stop signs, four speed humps and double yellow center lines in two
places, all north of where Cactus Avenue turns to become Crystal
View.